Wake-up Canada!

TECHNOLOGY
Canada risks missing digital revolution: Google CFO
Matt Hartley, Financial Post
Published: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 Patrick Pichette, chief financial officer of Google Inc., says Canada is in danger of missing out on international opportunities afforded by the Internet and the digital revolution. From his office in Silicon Valley, Patrick Pichette has a unique view of the business landscape in his home country of Canada. (Norm Betts/Bloomberg)

What he sees is a country in danger of missing out on international opportunities afforded by the Internet and the digital revolution that could turn Canadian businesses into global champions.

Yesterday, the Canadian-born chief financial officer of Web giant Google Inc. -- a post he once held at BCE Inc. -- was in Toronto to speak to a gathering of business leaders about using the Web to think beyond the borders of the Great White North.

"Every company now is global," Mr. Pichette said in an interview. "As I travel the world, everybody that's innovating, they don't think 'I'm doing this for France' or 'I'm doing this for Japan,' they think, immediately out of the box -- 'I'm taking this global.' I just want to make sure that we as Canadian companies don't miss the boat because we're not set up that way."

Although Canadians spend more time online than just about any other nation in the world, advertising dollars and marketers haven't followed audiences online to the same degree as in other countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

"The needle hasn't moved yet in any significant way, and it continues to be an area where there's fantastic opportunities for any company who is willing to invest in that space, whether they invest with Google or not," he said.

"It's not a Google issue, it's an issue of there's a world out there that's shaping and people should seize the opportunity."

Embracing the marketing power of the Web is especially important for small and medium-sized businesses, even if they're only spending $100 a month online, Mr. Pichette said.

"Canadian companies do not spend what would be required to actually capture the advertising opportunity; they are staying traditional in their behaviour and mindset," he said.

"Even if they're a medium-sized company and they've never done any of it before, go and learn -- whether it's with Google or somewhere else --learn digital advertising, because that's where people live now."

While some areas of the economy are still recovering from the effects of the global economic downturn, Mr. Pichette said there's really no recession in the digital space, and that the technology sector continues to grow despite the broader economy.

"The e-commerce and the digital sectors have done tremendously well," he said. "It just shows that there are two economies that are moving at different rates because they are governed by fundamentally different forces."

Last week, the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice approved a landmark search advertising deal between Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., which will see Google's two biggest competitors in search team up to challenge the Web giant's dominance.

Still, Mr. Pichette said the new alliance won't change the way Google conducts its business in the search world.

"Competition is good because it keeps everybody honest," he said. "We, Google, continue to be only one click away for everybody, so as soon as there's a better mousetrap, you switch. So in that world, it will keep us even more focused on what we do well, but it doesn't change our core agenda. We just have to take even more notice because now we have a competitor that has even more scale."

mhartley@ nationalpost.com